Yesterday in Sports 06 21 26

Welcome to the underdog World Cup show from underdog podcasts. I'm Chris Horvidell, and every day during the tournament, we're breaking down the matches, the moments, the teams under pressure, and the games coming next. This is the underdog World Cup show. Hey, I'm Chris Horvidell, and this is yesterday in sports. What happened yesterday and why it matters. We're going to start in Philadelphia where the Phillies did their best to make the Mets pitching staff look like they were throwing batting practice. The Phillies beat the Mets 15-3 and it was one of the weirdest, loudest baseball box scores you're ever going to see. Bryce Harper hit for the first cycle of his career, which was already a headline all by itself. And then Kyle Schwarber hit three home runs, including two in the same inning. So yeah, normal baseball stuff. One guy hits for the cycle, another guy turns into prime Barry Bonds for an inning, and the Mets were just kind of standing there looking like a double-A team who walked into the wrong stadium. Harper actually hit for the cycle after switching to a heavier 35-ounce bat, which is very baseball. Sometimes the answer is analytics, sometimes it's launch angle, and sometimes it's like, what if the bat was heavier, dude? And historically, this was ridiculous. The Phillies became just the second team in MLB history to have one player hit for the cycle and another to hit at least three home runs in the same game. The other time it happened, 1932, with the Yankees, including Tony Lazzari and Lou Gehrig. When your stat line ends up next to Lou Gehrig, I think you had a pretty decent Saturday. Over at the World Cup, Germany is officially into the knockout stage after a 2-1 win over Ivory Coast, and it wasn't clean. Germany had two first-half goals ruled out, trailed after Franck Cussier scored for Ivory Coast, and then Denise Undov came off the bench and scored twice. Undov tied it in the 68th minute and then won it in stoppage time. That's nine goals in its last eight appearances for Germany, which isn't just a hot streak anymore, heat is officially a problem for other teams. And that matters, because Germany hasn't reached the knockout stage of the World Cup since winning the whole thing in 2014. After their group stage exits in 2018 and 2022, this isn't just a win, it's Germany finally looking around and saying, yeah, we are supposed to be Germany. Let's do this. But the best World Cup story of the day might have been Curaçao getting its first ever World Cup point in a 0-0 draw against Ecuador. Eloy Rahm made 15 saves, the most ever in a 90-minute World Cup match. Curaçao is the smallest nation ever to reach this stage of the competition with a population of just 156,000 people. Six days after losing 7-1 to Germany, Curaçao comes back and takes a point off Ecuador, a team that had been unbeaten in 19 straight matches. That's why the World Cup is so great. Sometimes the story isn't who wins the trophy, sometimes it's the goalkeeper standing on his head and a tiny island getting a night nobody there is ever going to forget. Japan also had a day. In match 1,000 in World Cup history, Japan beat Tunisia in Monterey. Daichi Kamada scored early, Ayase Oede scored twice, and Japan became the first Asian team ever to score four goals in a World Cup match. That's not just a fun note, it's a marker for where global soccer is heading right now. Japan isn't showing up as this cute underdog story, Japan is showing up with structure, depth, pace, and the ability to make you look really uncomfortable for 90 minutes. The Netherlands had a statement too, beating Sweden 5-1. Brian Broby scored twice in the opening 17 minutes, Cody Gapko added two more, and suddenly Group F looks like Japan and the Netherlands are not here just for the vibes, they're here to ruin your bracket. In the WNBA, Angel Reese made history, becoming the fastest player in league history to reach 1,000 career rebounds, getting there in her 79th game. The Atlanta Dream beat the Indiana Fever 113-96, and Atlanta set a franchise record for points in a game. Ryan Howard had 24, Alicia Gray had 22, and Reese finished with 18 and 8 boards. And look, with the Fever, the Caitlin Clarke spotlight is always going to be enormous, that's the deal, but Atlanta is turning into one of the biggest stories in the league. They're 11-4, they've beaten Indiana twice in three days, and they're starting to look less like a fun team and more like an actual problem. In Raleigh, the Carolina Hurricanes held their Stanley Cup parade and about 150,000 fans, roughly the same size as the entire nation, of carousel, showed up downtown to celebrate the franchise's first championship in 20 years. And because hockey is hockey, the Canes also announced a depth signing during the celebration, as they brought back Nick Deslauriers on a two-year deal. Only the NHL can give you we're crying over the cup, but also, hey, here's a new deal for one of our guys during the same celebration. Now for the rumor watch, this one's gonna be real. Tariq Scouville, a name to watch and keep an eye on as Major League Baseball barrels towards the MLB trade deadline. According to reporting summarized by CBS Sports, the Tigers are likely to move the reigning two-time Cy Young winner if they don't turn things around, and Detroit's reportedly looking for controllable pitching and athletic position players close to being big league ready. That's the deadline in one sentence. Please give us your best prospects, but make them athletic and affordable. Scouville would be a rental after this season, so this probably isn't an unlimited prospect haul for them. But aces matter, and if a contender thinks that one starter can change what happens in October, that phone call gets really serious, really quick. In Omaha, Oklahoma beat North Carolina 9-3 in Game 1 of the Men's College World Series Finals. Deaton LaChance hit a two-run home run and had a three-hit day, Fison Harris had another three hits, and the Sooners are now one win away from their first national title since 1994. That's kind of the beauty of Omaha. One game, one swing, and suddenly the baseball world's pretending it totally knew this was coming. On the tennis side, Taylor Fritz beat Alexanders Varev 6-7, 6-4, 7-5 in Hale. Fritz hit 19 aces, won 87% of his first serve points, and snapped Varev's 10-match winning streak. Francis Tiafoe beat Daniel Altmaier 6-1, 6-3, which sets up an All-American final on grass in Germany. That's fun. Americans playing for a grass court title overseas just isn't something you see every day. And finally, in the Women's T20 World Cup, Australia beat the Netherlands by 98 runs, 2-19 to 6, and 1-21 to 3. Australia is still Australia. Basically, the final boss of a video game with better uniforms. But the cool story was Babette Delada. She scored 56 in her 100th T20 International, becoming the first player from an associate nation to score 50 against Australia in either the ODIs or T20Is. Just in case you're not familiar, the Women's T20 World Cup is a biannual world cup for the sport of cricket in the T20 format. For the Netherlands, it's a loss you can actually take something from. Australia gets the win, but the Netherlands got a milestone that matters. And honestly, sometimes that's the whole point of these tournaments. The heavyweights roll on, but somebody else leaves with a story that they get to tell forever. I'm Chris Horvidell, and that's it for today's show about what happened yesterday. We'll see you tomorrow.